There’s been a trend over the last couple years to pivot to newsletters. My local radio station, software development news, and even people I follow have been putting out a lot of content straight to my email. …

It was late, perhaps 11pm or so on a February weeknight roughly a year ago when I saw Russians plow across the Ukrainian border. This was a stark showing of imperialism that Europe hasn’t seen in generations. The following few days I was glued to a TV, or more often…

The modern web browser is a neat tool. You can access the world’s knowledge and open up a variety of different websites in horizontal tabs. You could open a few, or a few dozen, or a few hundred. To help focus, I’ve been installing progressive web apps: turning a…

I received an envelope in the mail a few weeks ago from the radio station WXPN. Inside were stickers and the recent CD from Alvvays. It was a gift from sending an entry into their weekly Name Chain Game. Name Chain Game When I was taking classes for grad school, I’d commute early…

I am a software engineer. I went to work this morning. I wrote code for two hours. Is this an admission of my laziness or low productivity? No. Over the weekend I read a short article from Matt Welsh predicting that AI will get so good at writing code that…

Like everyone else, this holiday week gave me a chance to reflect on the past year and start making plans for the year ahead. The year started slow, and then proceeded to rush towards the end. Some things were accomplished, others I forgot about. …

There’s a thought experiment, and a warning, about leaving too much to AI. In the paperclip maximizer example, an AI is told to make paperclips as efficiently as possible. Without sufficient guardrails, it soon begins to convert everything, including people, into paperclips as it spirals out of control. In this…

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe — Carl Sagan ChatGPT has quickly garnered a lot of attention, and deservedly so. As a tech demo for large language models, it is really impressive. You can ask it pretty much anything and…

Hey, I’ve been writing fantasy novels. I’ve already published the first one and I recommend you read it! Sign up for my author site newsletter while you’re at it. As part of this marketing campaign I’ve authored a series of posts with illustrations of main characters. I’ve also done posts…